The Graduation Party
by fucking salad
Summary: Faberry one-shot. A graduation party for the Glee club is beginning at Puck's, and so is the rest of their lives.


**The Graduation Party**

You'd think that after years of hanging out with the same people in the same places over and over again one would feel the need to run away from this town, make some new friends and enjoy whatever it is that the future holds.

But right in that moment, the night of graduation day, Quinn just felt like seeing those people again, and so did all the others, because that funny little thing that is nostalgia, which makes its appearance in your mind when you least expect it, was wrapping them in a tight, warm embrace, tethering them together for the years to come, no matter what drama or what relationships had threatened to destroy that motley crew.

They were at Puck's house – where else? – and the after graduation party was just beginning. Music was blasting through the giant speakers of the living room and everyone was drinking. Not much, just a couple of shots to kick away that weird little sensation that was filling everyone's mind equally: this is the end of an era, nothing is ever going to be the same from now on.

Everyone has experienced that, at least once in their lifetime, and the Glee club was experiencing that right then, on graduation day. They had been feeling the same for about a month, but everyone was too proud to even acknowledge it.

"So, may the after graduation party begin!", yelled Puck with a smug grin, and started pouring vodka straight into Jacob Ben Israel's mouth. Puck had invited him too. He had said he needed to make his last appearance on the school newspaper before he left for California. The truth was, he wanted everyone to be there. Everyone that had been part of his high school experience – also, he wanted a video recording of the night, just in case a high school reunion ever happened in the future.

Santana was dancing slowly with Brittany, so slowly one could say she was just holding her in the middle of the living room. If one had been close enough to them, he would've heard them whispering to each other.

"Louisville is not that far away from here, Britts."

"I still don't get how I failed geography."

"It's okay Britt, I'll be here every weekend."

"You don't even have to cross the border to get to Lima, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Louisville is in Ohio, isn't it?"

Santana moved her head from its place in the crook of Brittany's neck to stare at her. The shock in Santana's eyes soon changed to the sweetest look you would ever see on her countenance.

"Louisville is in Kentucky. But it's just four hours away Britt," then she rested her head in the crook of Brittany's neck again.

"I'll miss speaking with you by the lockers, San."

"I'll miss not seeing you right beneath me in the pyramid."

"I'll miss not sneaking into your shower after Cheerios practice."

"Don't make me cry now, Britt," Santana whispered, half of her laughing, half of her already missing her. Then her eyes widened, and she whispered, "And you'd better not sneak into someone else's shower after Cheerios, Britt. Even if the fact that I'm no longer in Cheerios temporarily slips your mind. Just don't," and Brittany laughed, because the fact that Santana wasn't going to be there with her in the following year would never slip her mind.

Finn was playing ping pong with Puck, momentarily forgetting the fact that he had had a fight with Rachel earlier on, a fight that had led Rachel to ask for a break. Any time that thought crossed his mind, his grin would dicrease in intensity, his eyes would focus down on his pong paddle and his forehead would scrunch up in confusion. Her words would echo in his mind. "_It's not going to be easy in New York already as it is! Why won't you stop questioning the fact that I love you? I just do, okay?_", she had looked down at her joined hands that rested in her lap, then fierce brown eyes had looked up at him again: "_Do I need to sing to you everytime you doubt it? Because it's tiring me out, to be completely honest with you!_"

Finn felt that same fit of pain right in the middle of his chest as he thought about her words while hitting the small white ball with his paddle with a particularly angry stroke, so the ball ended on the back of Sam's head.

Sam merely grunted and then laughed again at whatever joke Artie was telling him, Mike, Mercedes and Tina. Tina then stood up and took her turn to sing karaoke. Well, she just shoved Sugar to a side after her fourth rendition of Chicago's "Roxie".

Sugar stumbled on Rachel, who politely – or sarcastically – complimented her for her karaoke skills.

Rachel was sauntering around the house, taking in the lack of family pictures and of anything else that could make a house a home. She wondered if that was why Puck was so interested in other people's pools and houses, if that was because he wanted to find his own home somewhere. She was happy for him: moving away to California, doing what he enjoyed, starting his own business… Puck, on the contrary of what one might think, was a smart guy. He had found his way at last.

Finn, instead, was still feeling insecure from time to time, and while Rachel was ready and willing to support him through his tantrums, he projected all his uncertainties on his fiancè and on her feelings for him. Rachel was honestly getting a bit sick of it. She had to think about her bright new future in New York, and she had to work on her schedule to be able to study at NYADA and audition on Broadway or off-Broadway shows throughout the week.

It was a good thing they weren't married yet, Rachel thought as she walked into the hallway.

Rachel then saw Quinn, standing there, talking to Kurt.

Quinn was standing again. After months of physical therapy and with the help of that Teen Jesus guy, who worked in the gym and knew quite a lot about physical recovery, she was standing again.

She's been through so much, Rachel thought.

The pregnancy, her parents had kicked her out of her own home, Sue Sylvester had kicked her out of the Cheerios, she had been at the bottom of the social ladder for months, then that Lucy Caboosey drama, she hadn't won Prom Queen, then Finn had dumped her after a_funeral_, then she had that extreme make-over with pink hair dye and an ironic tattoo plastered on her low back which would show when she wore that short black top and that low-rise skirt…

Rachel momentarily let her mind wander for a while, thinking about how much Quinn had been through, her eyes fixated on the stunning blonde girl right before her.

Quinn laughed, in that child-like, innocent laugh. She looked ethereal. Her cheekbones, her hazel eyes that now bordered on yellow – oh, those smart, naturally flirty eyes - that trademark eyebrow which would raise from time to time…

Her figure was elegant, poised, and Rachel thought it still told about family teachings.

That eyebrow lift and that occasional eye roll were deeply engrained in her, the way a lifetime habit is: they both came from a generally disapproving family. In such condemnatory and critical households such as the Fabray's, eyes being rolled and eyebrows being lifted were their everyday response to the world's lack of decency and morality.

But in Quinn, while in the past eyes being rolled and eyebrows being lifted partnered with mean retorts, they were now just a playful reaction.

Her Audrey Hepburn graceful smile made its appearance on Quinn's features and Rachel thought, Holy Barbra she's perfect. That smile still made heads turn. Oh, it did, and Rachel knew it. Rumor had it that once a boy riding a bike snapped his neck and crashed into a garbage can in an attempt to look at her. But now her smile was not a thin-lipped, sneer-like programmed software that lacked of any kind of warmth: it was gentle, and it showed the accomplishment of a person who was unlikely to ever get out of her hometown, but did, against all the odds and nevertheless everything she'd been through.

Just when Rachel let herself just stare at Quinn, Blaine called Kurt's name, and Kurt skipped in his direction, past Rachel.

Quinn whipped her head around to look at Kurt gamboling away from her, and in the process, she locked eyes with Rachel.

_Wow_, thought Rachel.

_Just wow_.

She felt her chest tightening around her heart as hazel eyes studied hers.

_Wow, what is she doing_, wondered Rachel.

Then Quinn took one step forward, and started walking towards Rachel, and the brunette felt herself panic.

Words were a complicated jabber inside her head, her hands were flailing about as she looked for something to say, or something to do, but Quinn was now right before her eyes, and Rachel could just exhale a deep breath she must've been holding.

She stopped right before Rachel, and her gold eyes stared into brunette ones, then shifting briefly their focus to Rachel's forehead and to Rachel's lips, before she said:

"Hey, Rachel. How are you?"

The unusual way Quinn pronounced Rachel's name made Rachel zone out for a moment.

_What is happening to me_, Rachel thought.

"Rachel?"

That husky, almost whispering warmhearted voice again.

Quinn snapped back into focus before Rachel's eyes.

"Quinn! I'm excellent! How are you?"

_Do try and sound less excited, Rachel_.

Quinn's eyes flickered briefly. Then she shone with that bright smile of hers.

You know, when you knock your head against, say, a wall, there's that fleeting moment in which you don't feel anything, but you know very well that in the matter of a few instants acute pain will flood over.

The second Rachel saw Quinn smile, genuinely, after three years, it was a bit like banging her head against the wall. She raised a smile, in that fleeting moment of happiness, in anticipation of that agony she felt each time she looked at Quinn.

She didn't know exactly why she felt that way everytime Quinn bothered to talk to her. She had just accepted it as a remembrance of the times where the blonde had insulted and harassed her.

Rachel was still waiting for that grief to flood over, but instead she felt her chest tighten again, and her big heart started thumping furiously against her small ribcage.

_Can she hear my heartbeat? Is she wondering what's wrong with me? Rachel, damn it, quick say something and do sound sane!_

"Fansadrin?"

Quinn's whole face scrunched up for a moment and Rachel felt warm all over.

"What?"

"Fancy a drink?"

Quinn brightened up and Rachel could almost see her golden eyes shifting slightly to hazel.

"Yeah," Quinn said, remembering Santana's plea to her not to be a 'pussy' (her words).

The brunette and the blonde made their way through the crowd to the empty kitchen to find some decent drinks – Puck had been the mixologist for the night, and nobody knew if absinth was even legal to begin with.

"Sex on the beach?"

Rachel almost felt her jaw hit the ground, while she stuttered helplessly as an amount of images engulfed her mind, leaving her at a loss.

"Wh-wh- I didn't quite catch wh-"

"The drink, Rachel. Is Sex On The Beach okay?" Quinn asked, sniggering.

"Oh-Of course! Yes! That would be ideal!"

Quinn turned around to open a cupboard to find glasses, retrieved ice cubes and opened the fridge to look for the ingredients necessary for the drink.

"I'm afraid there's no peach schnapps in here. Is Tequila Sunrise okay?"

Rachel didn't want to ask her why she knew where the glasses were in Noah's kitchen, neither did she want to ask her why she knew the exact recipes of those drinks. She honestly knew the answer to both questions.

But before she had time to get upset over them, Quinn whipped around with two glasses, and she handed one of them to Rachel, smiling.

Rachel grinned back, thinking 'Boy, has she changed,' and they started drinking in comfortable silence, both standing against the kitchen counter, close enough to brush each other's hand from time to time.

"Are you looking forward to Yale?"

The question came out as a whisper, but Rachel hadn't intended it to. The back of Quinn's hand then brushed against the back of hers, and she felt a zing of electricity that made her heart thump wildly.

_What the heck is this?_

"Yeah. I mean, I'll miss you."

Silence. Tumble weed. Crickets.

"All of you."

"Of course, yeah."

"But I really want to start back somewhere else. I've been through so much and... Everything in Lima reminds me of my troubled high school years. I really want to see the snow falling in New Haven next winter," she finished, with a laugh.

"Of course," Rachel said smiling.

"How about you? Are you looking forward to NYADA?"

"I have yet to get the results for my second audition, Quinn…"

"But I know you'll get in. I'm sure of it," Quinn said, turning to look at Rachel fully, leaning on the kitchen counter with her half full glass.

Alcohol was creeping in their veins and it spread a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling in both of them.

Rachel looked down at her drink, her half empty glass, and was about to answer when Finn's voice announced his ingress in the kitchen.

"Rachel?"

Rachel sighed tiredly, looked at Quinn for a moment, squinting her eyes like she was pondering over something, then whispered to her ear, "I'll be right back, Quinn," her lips brushing her cheek in the process of angling away from her.

Neither of them knew if that had been completely intentional, but it left both of them with a nice, warm sensation.

Quinn giggled bitterly at herself once Rachel had closed the door on her way out of the kitchen, leaving her alone.

She sighed heavily and drank the rest of her tequila, thinking about how ironic her life was.

Quinn had been dealing with Rachel for just about three years.

They had met because of the glee club, they had dated the same boys, they had sung together… They were connected on so many levels. Their fears, their dreams, their self-perceptions, their past, their insecurities.

They had been playing this strange game of cat and mouse for three years where one would call the other names, the other would retort with getting Finn back with her, they both did each other wrong, and yet they kept on looking for each other in between classes, during glee numbers, and when they knew the other was having a hard time.

They were a clash of worlds. They had begun their own conflict when Quinn was the stereotypical cheerleader, mean, popular, with the quarter-back of the school's football team as her boyfriend, while Rachel was this tiny creature with a heart so big, so full of dreams and talent. Their relationship had developed just as they had both grown together. They had found their way towards each other, they had learnt each other's weaknesses and insecurities. They knew how to hurt each other as well as they knew how to make each other happy.

How did Quinn end up so tangled up in the life of her former enemy, now kind-of-friend Rachel freaking Berry? And how did Rachel end up being so tethered with Quinn's life and problems? Was it the boyfriends? Was it Shelby and Beth?

Quinn didn't think so. Even if they hadn't dated the same boys, even if Shelby had never made her appearance in Lima, even if they weren't tethered together by the way their lives just happened to be revolving around the same things, they would still be tied through their own personal way of ticking for the same things, but at different rhythms and with opposite attitudes.

When Quinn did wrong, Rachel was always there. The way those incredibly big brown eyes would look at her whenever she did anything stupid… it felt somewhat sobering to Quinn. Those eyes would make her realize that whatever it was that made such sense in Quinn's mind in that specific moment, was plain ill-judged. And everytime she realized it, Quinn felt herself shrink down to the size of a quarter, because that damn talented girl with those incredibly big brown eyes always knew what was right and what was wrong.

She believed in Rachel. She liked to think she had been her first real fan: she had watched every single video that Rachel would upload on her MySpace, and she had been the first to comment on them. Of course, her comments consisted of vicious words, but that was just because she thought she was supposed to act like her fellow cheerleaders, and because she was young, and foolish, and she was probably not mature enough to explain why Rachel's talent made her lose her temper and see red.

Was it because she had a goal in her life? Was it because she was so unapologetic?

Quinn didn't know, but in senior year she soon found that Rachel's entire being was larger than life. Her laugh, just like her voice, was thundering, it claimed attention. Rachel's smile was honest, genuine, and it somehow always reached her eyes, reducing them to sweet little drops of chocolate surrounded by those pretty, fluttering eyelashes.

Quinn remembered her smiling, and a strange, familiar feeling made its way through her body. Quinn brushed it off without thinking, just as she had learned to.

She hummed a tune she had learned to associate to the thought of Rachel. Their duet. The glances, the watery eyes, Rachel's insecure look. Quinn had never seen Rachel break down that way.

Quinn absentmindedly drank what was left of her drink in a gulp, placed the empty glass on the cupboard, and made her way outside the kitchen humming that beautifully put-together mash-up. She liked to think about the times they had talked by the lockers to find the perfect song. Rachel obviously wanted a Broadway hit, while Quinn wanted something that would remind her of her childhood, something that Lucy Caboosey used to sing. At last, they had managed to find something that would have fit equally their wishes. A mash-up of two different worlds, just like Rachel and Quinn were. Rachel and Quinn were a beautifully built mash-up of different worlds.

Quinn was thinking about how she treasured the time they had spent together to practice on that song, when she walked through the kitchen door and through the living room to find herself staring at a teary Rachel standing just by the staircase.

She strode to her, and whispered:

"Rachel! What is wrong?"

Rachel raised her eyes to look at Quinn. And right in that moment, Quinn knew she didn't like to see Rachel cry. She would do anything to make those tears go away and to see that boisterous laugh and that dimpley smile again, because as much as those tears made Rachel's eyelashes look pretty, she didn't like the way Rachel was sobbing and whimpering.

So Quinn took Rachel by the hand and led her upstairs. She wanted to find a peaceful spot, but she didn't want to go in Puck's room right now. It didn't feel right. She was also a bit dizzy, and that reminded of more than she liked to think about right then. So she just stopped by the staircase, and looked at Rachel.

"What's wrong, Rachel?"

Rachel thumbed a couple of tears away from her cheek, and she inhaled a much needed breath. Then she started hiccuping, and Quinn giggled a little.

Rachel scrunched up her face in an indignant look, and Quinn whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. You just look cute."

_What the hell are you doing, Quinn?_

Was it the alcohol? Quinn didn't know.

"Finn… Finn was mad at me for breaking us up."

"You… you broke up with Finn?"

"I asked for a break earlier today, but then Finn… you know, when he came into the kitchen? He wanted to know what he did wrong. So I explained fully. Maybe I was being a little too… passionate, so then he lost his temper and went berserk, and said I'm being petty."

"What?"

Quinn was appalled.

"He said that what I'm concerned about has no meaning or significance, because we're getting married and going to New York together… And after a rather long altercation, I decided to break up with him, definitely."

Quinn made a move as to grab Rachel's left hand when she saw that she was still holding it, so she just raised it to eye-level. Rachel wasn't wearing his ring anymore.

"Wow. Are you sure?"

"I'm not in love with him."

That sentence came as a shock for both of them as it left Rachel's mouth.

"I love the idea of him. Of what he could be, potentially. But I'm not ready to deal with his tantrums on my way to New York. I need to focus solely on my goal."

Quinn then tilted her head and smiled, looking at Rachel's left hand in hers, amazed by the contrast of complexions and by the lack of her engagement ring.

"I'm glad you chose your dreams, finally."

Quinn then felt Rachel exhale with a smile, and she tightened her grip on that other hand, fearing that she might change her mind any second. As she held that tiny hand, she felt the lines of her palm brushing against the lines of Rachel's palm. She almost felt those lines tangling together in such a tight knot she suddenly felt like she had grabbed Rachel's hand for good. Then she glanced up at Rachel, and it felt like she was looking at her for the first time.

She was really looking at Rachel. This time, her eyes didn't avert. This time, she didn't spit out a mean insult to break that fleeting moment. This time, she just stared at Rachel.

Rachel felt that tight grasp around her heart again. She felt like she was about to explode, so she scrunched her face up in confusion, and she hiccuped one last time, before something that would change their lives entirely happened.

Quinn watched her hiccup. Actually, she felt her hiccup against her chest and she wondered, When did I get so close to her?, and before she could really think about it, she was looking down at Rachel's lips.

Here they are, she thought.

Why am I even staring at her lips? Is it the tequila?, she wondered.

Here they are, she thought again.

And gosh these are beautiful lips, she admitted.

This is my chance, she thought.

My chance to do what?, she wondered.

I don't even know, she thought, as she leaned in before she could really stop it.

The first thing she felt was a hiccup that died out in a whimper. The second thing she felt was that she was indeed kissing Rachel Berry.

Quinn, in that moment, in that kiss, offered Rachel a little bit of everything she had, right up against that staircase that creaked a little when she tilted her head a little to the right.

Rachel gasped a little, and when Quinn barely let her lips open up to kiss Rachel's fully, she felt her breath against her tongue and she stepped back, leaving Rachel with her plump lips still slightly open, and her eyes still tightly shut.

Holy crap, Quinn thought.

What happened just now?, Rachel wondered, as she opened her eyes, slowly.

As Quinn locked eyes with Rachel, all that happened in the previous three years came crashing down on her, leaving her at a loss.

Did it really all come down to this? Was I really that blind?, she asked herself.

Then she giggled a little, and said:

"I'm sorry, maybe it was the tequila. Or the shots that Santana made me drink early tonight. Or the combination of both."

When Rachel laughed too, Quinn exhaled, and thought, Or maybe it isn't the alcohol.

_Maybe it's just me wanting to kiss you, and I did because I really felt like doing it._

"What did you just say?" Rachel asked, with wide eyes.

Holy crap I've said that out loud, Quinn thought.

"Nothing. Nothing, just…" an awkward pause, an intake of breath by both Quinn and Rachel, and as Quinn felt her head get dizzy with excitement, she kissed Rachel again.

And it would be the sweetest kiss either of them would ever know.

And it would be their second, but not their last.

If you had walked up the stairs right in that moment, you would've seen Quinn leaning into Rachel again, and whisper to her ear something that sounded a lot like:

"It's just 80 miles. We won't be that far away from each other."

And Quinn was right, because 80 miles would be the farthest away from each other they would ever know.


End file.
